


would that i

by HawthorneWhisperer



Category: The Witcher (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-03
Updated: 2020-01-25
Packaged: 2021-02-27 10:20:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 7,389
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22095520
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HawthorneWhisperer/pseuds/HawthorneWhisperer
Summary: A series of outtakes of Geralt and Yennefer somewhere between the djinn and the dragon. (Don't ask me when, I don't understand the timeline either.)
Relationships: Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Yennefer z Vengerbergu | Yennefer of Vengerberg
Comments: 127
Kudos: 548





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Have I played the game? No. Will I ever play the game? Also no. Have I read the books? Nope. Will I? I dunno, that's a maybe right now.
> 
> Did I watch the first season on netflix and think "damn those two are hot I wanna write fic about them and not think about this any harder than that"?
> 
> Pretty much, yeah.

It was never planned, exactly. They didn’t send messages, scheme to meet one another in this backwater village or that. But when you’re as long lived and restless as a witcher and a mage, even on a place as big as the Continent, you tend to cross paths.

That’s what Yennefer told herself, anyway. It was a chance of fate, not the will of destiny, that brought them together. The pull in her belly, the way she felt tied to Geralt of Rivia even when it had been years since they last shared a bed— it didn’t mean anything. It couldn’t.

She won’t let it.

This time, she stumbled on him sitting in a dark corner of a tavern, nursing an ale with his back to the corner. He always sat like that, ready to face down anyone— or anything— that approached. He leaned into the darkness, like he was trying to hide. As if anyone could hide hair like his. She told herself that’s how she noticed him, that it wasn’t that she’d been looking for him, scanning the corners of every tavern she passed through just in case they concealed his massive bulk.

At least he’d taken a room this time. Sometimes, whether because he didn’t have the coin or he was looking to avoid a fight, he slept in the woods. There was something earthy and feral about those encounters, of course, and it wasn’t that she didn’t enjoy them. But there was something about Geralt in a bed that made him different. Softer. Funnier. 

Sweeter.

“What’s this one?” he asked in that low, rough growl. His voice always curled around her like butter on a spoon, smooth and rich, and she had to fight the urge to purr like a cat. Her dress was somewhere on the floor near the fire, left in a hasty pile along with his clothes. His sword rested against the bed, never far from his reach, and she wondered what it would take to convince him to spend a week here, in this bed. 

But then she remembered what they were, and her wondering stopped.

Yennefer lifted her head to peer down at him, his thumb brushing back and forth across the small raised scar just above her knee, on the outer curve of her thigh. This was a game they played often, a way of learning about one another without having to ask. With lives like theirs, there was often things you didn’t want to talk about, moments you couldn’t bear to think about except in the dark. With scars, you could always lie. There’d be no way of knowing the truth, and in the end a story is a story. But she never lied to him, at least not about her scars. “Drunk prince at a ball.”

Geralt’s face went cold. “Who was he?”

“He broke a glass,” she soothed, unable to fight the grin on her face. “It shattered and fell, is all.”

Those yellow eyes burned into her. “And you didn’t fix it?”

It was a fair question. It was an easy enough spell, after all, especially for a mage with her powers. “Never bothered,” Yennefer shrugged, although that was only a half truth. When her leg started bleeding that night, her first thought— after her annoyance at a ruined gown and a spoiled, useless princeling— had been of Geralt. The next time they met she knew he’d find it, trace it gently, and place his mouth on it as if he could heal it with a kiss.

The truth was, she’d left it for him.

He dropped a kiss to it and crawled up her body, clearly still planning to track down the poor prince and make him pay. Geralt paused to nip playfully at the hollow of her waist and drew a girlish giggle from her throat. “Anyone else I need to find?” he asked, capturing her lips in a soft, needy kiss that was wholly at odds with his entire being.

“No one foolish enough to risk your wrath, no,” she confirmed, her hands sliding across his bare skin. Her finger snagged on the scar from his dead princess, the one who made his eyes go soft and his voice carry a trace of sadness. She didn’t ask about that one, not anymore. It was better to leave the dead be, at least while one was lucky enough to remain among the living.

Geralt captured her hands and pinned them next to her ears, lifting his head to mouth at the scars on the underside of her wrists. He’d never asked about those, but then again, he’d never needed to. He’d simply understood them, from the first moment they met.

She should have realized then how dangerous he was, how easily he could find the soft parts of her and hold them in his hands, so careful and tender but still utterly capable of breaking her.

He eased back down, trailing kisses between her breasts and over the curve of her belly. His touch was always so warm, so delicate, like feathers tickling her skin. He nosed at her stomach, breath stirring the patch of hair between her legs. “Don’t tease me,” she warned, and he chuckled darkly against her inner thigh.

“Don’t give me orders,” he rejoined, his thumbs sweeping across her hipbones. She glared at down at him and he smirked back at her for long enough that she worried he would make her pay.

But she should have known he wouldn’t. Geralt was many things, but here he was nothing but giving. Too giving, maybe. It made her self-conscious sometimes, worry that she wasn’t who he thought she was. When they weren’t in bed she knew where they stood but here, like this, Yennefer was always one laugh away from surrending herself to him completely.

Geralt’s tongue found her center and she arched her back, lost.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Decided I should really earn that M rating.

A liveried servant refilled her goblet and melted back into the shadows. In the center of the room people danced, the music lively and bright even as it bored her to tears. Every ball was the same, every kingdom just like the one to its south. The nobles’ faces changed, but everything else stayed the same. Yennefer sighed, leaning back in the chair, and Geralt shifted beside her.

“Party not to your liking?” he asked over the rim of his cup, eyebrow quirked.

“I can’t wait for this insufferable feast to be over,” she replied. They kept their eyes trained on the dancers even though they were the only two left at the table. The king had long ago abandoned his seat to chase a merchant’s daughter around the hall, but it would be seen as poor manners for Yennefer to decamp to her chambers already. She was trapped for the next few hours, but at least she had Geralt for company, taciturn though he was.

He shifted again, moving almost imperceptibly closer to her. On the raised dais opposite them the musicians struck up another tune and the dancers split into two lines. The back of Geralt’s knuckles brushed her bare thigh, tracing the slit of her gown from knee to hip. She sucked in a breath but refused to look at him, face implacable.

She heard him grunt softly and his hand flipped over, warm and broad and callused as it retraced its path. He paused, his hand spanning the curve of her thigh, fingers dangerously close to her center. Her blood sang and her skin heated as the chaos inside her churned wildly, calling to him.

Geralt kept his face towards court, face as still and unreadable as granite, and then he flicked his gaze at her, so quick she almost missed it. But she let a glimmer of a smile play across her lips before schooling her face back into a mask of boredom. Only then did he move his hand, easing under the silk of her skirt to dip into her folds.

Yennefer bit down on the inside of her lip, and she knew his witcher eyes saw the slight indentation of her teeth. She was wet already, and it took all her concentration to bend the light around them, cloaking them in just enough shadow so no one else would notice his hand working between her legs.

He pushed a finger inside of her, thick and blunt, and she let her legs fall open just a little bit more. She needed more of him and she needed him deeper, and when he pressed a second digit into her she had to forcibly stifle a moan. She brought her cup to her lips and watched the tiniest of grins quirk his lips. His fingers were busy, thrusting in and out of her while the heel of his palm ground against her clit.

Her peak was sharp and fast, pulsing through her in waves so powerful it was a wonder the glass windows behind them didn’t shatter. Geralt didn’t stop as her walls began to flutter, fucking his fingers into her until she was utterly spent.

It wasn’t until she had stopped shuddering and clenching that he moved his hand, casually withdrawing it and reaching for a chicken leg left half-eaten on his plate. Under the guise of finishing it he licked her off his fingers, his yellow eyes gleaming with satisfaction. Yennefer could only watch, limbs gone limp and soft, until the king’s wretched brother approached and asked for the honor of a dance.

She agreed, but only because she knew Geralt’s eyes would never leave her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There's at least one more ficlet coming.


	3. Chapter 3

Geralt left the feast first. He had less use for manners, and less incentive to play by the inane rules of the nobility than Yennefer did. Her ties to the Brotherhood came with a multitude of expectations, while he had the luxury of not caring.

The noise of the ball had faded before he scented her, trailing several meters behind him. The halls of the castle were endless, winding deeper and deeper into the belly of the fortress. Geralt kept walking, letting the mage play her game.

He loved their games, truth be told. He loved the way she curved her lips at him when she was planning something, like she was the predator and he was the prey. He loved turning the tables on her, like he had in the Great Hall, licking her taste from his fingers while nobles and courtiers twirled around them. He loved making her beg, and he loved it even more when she made _him_ beg.

Her footsteps drew closer, soft scuffing on stone, and he slowed his gait. She deserved a fair fight, he reasoned, although Geralt wasn’t about to just let her win. She had been tormenting him earlier, dancing with a duke whose hands roamed far too freely across her body while she smirked at him across the room. Yennefer knew what that did to him, how possessive he could be on the nights they were together.

He was thinking of how he’d make her pay for that stunt when she made her move, swirling out of the darkness to pin him against the wall. His hands found her waist and he let out a surprised grunt, the image of her spread out on his bed-- his face between her thighs while she cried out for him to  _ stop _ and  _ keep going _ simultaneously-- suddenly replaced by the determined lift of her chin as she pushed him into a darkened alcove.

“Silence,” Yennefer hissed, and when she captured his mouth for a kiss it was like she was devouring him, obliterating any thoughts of defeating her. He was hers, whether she knew it or not. 

Whether she wanted it or not.

His hand cradled the back of her skull to keep her close, but all too soon she’d broken away. “Quiet,” she reminded him, her breath hot in his ear, and then she dropped to her knees.

“Yen,” he growled, wanting to yank her back to her feet, but a sharp look from those dark purple eyes silenced him. She jerked his breeches open with practiced fingers, and another surge of jealousy rose unbidden in his chest. He never felt like this with anyone else, as though all the monsters he'd ever killed lived inside of him, ready to rip any other man who had ever touched her to shreds.

His cock was hard— had been at least half-hard since his fingers skated up her thigh at the banquet— but when her warm, wet mouth encircled him, he turned to steel. He almost growled her name but stopped himself, letting his head fall back against the stone while his fingers sank into her thick, soft hair. She braced her hands on his hips and swallowed him, eyes like purple flame as she looked up. 

Geralt heard the  _ clink _ of a sword against armor seconds before she did. It was only a guard doing his rounds, but together they flung their hands out and pushed the chaos out, rattling something in the opposite direction.

It was enough. The footsteps retreated and his hand once again returned her to hair, slipping through the strands as she worked him up and down, driving any coherent thought from his head. There was nothing left but Yennefer, her scent and her heat and her mouth, her taste still on his tongue as he swelled harder and tugged at her hair in a clumsy warning.

He should have known she’d ignore him, sucking him deeper until he nudged the back of her throat and let go, spilling into her with a stifled groan.

Yennefer stood, smirking, but before she could go he tugged her against him, his arms wrapping around her as he sighed. She hesitated, stiff, but only for a moment. Then she melted against him, and he patted clumsily at her hair, dropping a kiss to to crown of her head. “Yen,” he whispered, and this time she didn’t silence him, only nestled deeper into his embrace.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> maybe there will be more vignettes in this series, maybe not. Who's to say, really.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Yen and Geralt deal with jealousy (whilst banging), and I had a request for Yennefer's thoughts on him calling her Yen so that's in there too.

It was Yennefer’s idea to hire a witcher. There was a monster that needed hunting, and what else were witchers for? The fact that it brought Geralt to her king’s court, eyes flashing dangerously when he saw her standing just to the left of the throne, was simply a coincidence.

"You have need of me?" Geralt asked, eyes on her and not the king.

“There’s a kikimore in the Eastern Swamps,” the king said, haughty and bored. “Kill it.”

Geralt’s eyes narrowed. “Kill it yourself,” he spat, and turned on his heel.

“We’ll pay double,” the king called. She may have told the king this would be part of the negotiations, suggesting he should expect to pay as much as four times as much— but also hinting that having the service of such a notable witcher would boost his prestige among the northern kingdoms.

It had been two years since she’d seen Geralt, after all. Sometimes, sacrifices must be made and kings must be manipulated if you wanted to see your sometime-lover.

Geralt halted. “Triple, and a favor from your mage.” He looked at them over his shoulder, gaze pinning her in place.

The king looked over at her, uncertain. She nodded, and the king clapped his hands. “Done!”

Geralt smirked, victorious, and and strode out without waiting to be dismissed.

“I hope this witcher of yours does the job,” the king muttered to her. 

Yennefer curled her hands into fists, trying to ignore the way her skin lit up whenever Geralt was around.  _ This was the plan. _ “He’ll get it done,” she promised him, but it wasn’t Geralt’s monster-killing prowess that had her feeling like she was playing with fire.

* * *

“Go away,” came the growl when she knocked. Yennefer let herself in anyway. The knock had been a mere courtesy, and he likely knew it. Geralt was neck deep in a bath in front of a roaring fire, and his face showed no surprise when she walked in.

“What’s the favor?” she snapped.

“It’s when you do something for someone when they ask, free of charge,” he said drily. He trailed his fingertips through the water, the tub far too deep for her to see anything below his chest at this angle.

“What do you want from me?” she said, arms crossed. Goosebumps broke out across her flesh at the way he licked his lips. This had been the plan— well, seduction had been the plan— but she resented him having something over her. She resented  _ anyone _ having something over her, but especially Geralt. Because with Geralt, she was always perilously close to losing control all together, giving in and becoming someone weak and soft. Someone needy. 

Someone she feared she had always been.

“What do you want from me?” he echoed.

“To kill the kikimore.”

“There are other witchers.”

“None of them are you.” The words were out before she could stop them.

Geralt stood, wrapping a towel around his waist as he stepped out. “So you wanted me,” he said in that low, dark voice.

“You say that like it’s a surprise. We’ve fucked before, Geralt.”

“So we have. But never when you called me to your side with a flimsy pretense.”

“It wasn’t flimsy. There is a kikimore.” She lifted her chin as he crowded her, refusing to back down.

He placed his finger under her chin, tipping her head back farther. “Yen,” he sighed, and she knew she needed to take control of this moment before it spiraled out of control completely.

She let her eyes go dark and sultry. “Kneel,” she said in a hard voice.

She watched his face, measuring his reaction. She saw the flicker of annoyance, quickly replaced by the heat of desire. His heartbeat picked up, going from a low, comforting  _ thump _ to a faster cadence, still far slower than a normal man's. He dropped to his knees before her, hands clenched at his sides.

She brushed a lock of hair back from his face and he leaned his forehead on her hip, inhaling her scent deeply. She brushed her thumb across his lower lip, nudging his jaw open. He laved at her thumb with his tongue, tasting her.

Yennefer tugged at the sash on her other hip until her robe came apart. She was naked underneath, and the flash of cool air on her skin was quickly replaced by Geralt’s impossibly warm hands as they spanned her hips.

He buried his face between her thighs eagerly. His tongue swept across her clit, fluttering back and forth before he moved on, licking her cunt thoroughly. At first she was content to stand, letting his shoulders support her weight, but as his tongue delved deeper and deeper inside of her her knees started to shake.

Geralt seemed to realize it and he pulled her down, laying his back with her kneeling above him. He groaned when she sank down on his face, sending a rumble through her flesh that set her nerves alight. She rocked her hips against him, needing to feel more of him, all of him. Geralt wrapped his arms around her thighs and held her in place, somehow taking control even when she was the one riding him. 

He ignored her commands, going slow when she wanted fast and shallow when she wanted him deeper, and only when she was a writing, panting mess did he give in. He drew her clit between his lips and sucked, sending a sharp shock of pleasure rippling out from her core.

Yennefer slumped forward, spent. Geralt had to shift her off of him, scooping her in his arms and lying her down on the spacious bed. He crawled up next to her, curling his body around hers, and she let his warmth lull her to sleep.

* * *

Several rounds later, the fire had burned low in the hearth and they were lounging on the bed, sipping wine Geralt had poured for them. “Why did you send for me? Truly?” he asked, elbow propped on the mattress.

“I was bored,” she said haughtily. She was stretched out languidly across the bed on her back, skin still glistening with sweat from the last time he’d been inside her.

“Good.”

“Good?”

He watched her over the rim of his cup. “I’m glad you haven’t found anything here to your liking.” 

“Any thing, or anyone?”

He grunted, but she just waited. “He wants to fuck you,” he growled.

Yennefer laughed. “Everyone wants to fuck me, Geralt. Even you.”

His face stayed implacable. “One hears stories. Of a king and his whores.”

“So? Lots of men visit whores. Don’t pretend I haven’t smelled them on you.” She didn’t expect fidelity from him, anymore than he expected it from her. But she wouldn’t pretend it didn’t get under her skin, thinking about him with other women. She wanted to be the only one who made him come, the only one who saw the deeply hidden tenderness inside.

“I don’t leave mine crying,” he snapped.

She flinched. The king’s cruelty was well known, and while she did her best to temper him, she was sick of being responsible for the shit men did without so much as a second thought. She had given him a potion to cause impotence, claiming it was for virility, but apparently that hadn’t been enough to protect the kingdom’s women. “So that’s it? You don’t want me to fuck him?” She had no intention of doing so, but she wasn't above needling him.

His eyes went dark and he pulled himself over her, pinning her to the mattress with his bulk. “I want you to leave.”

“Leave?” She let him settle into the cradle of her hips, his cock pressing against her entrance.

“Leave,” he grunted and sheathed himself inside her. 

She had to take a moment to adjust to the feel of him, so thick and right. “Why should I?”

“You said you would. That’s my favor. I want you— I want you to leave,” he said, pulling out slowly and then thrusting in, inch by aching inch.

It was hard to think, much less talk, when he was fucking her like this. “My life is here,” she protested, and tugged his face to hers for a messy kiss that was more teeth than lips or tongue.

“So? You're bored. And that was my condition. Money, and a favor.”

“What if—”

“Please, Yen,” he begged, and it was that, more than anything, that stole the words from her throat. She hated nicknames, as they reminded her too much of those dark years at Aretuza as Piglet and the even darker ones before when she barely even had a name. She was  _ Yennefer _ , not Yen or Yenna or gods forbid, Yennie.

But when Geralt called her  _ Yen _ like that, hoarse and desperate, she forgot all that. She wanted to be Yen forever, live with him in some out of the way farm as husband and wife. They’d find a foundling to take in and Geralt would breed horses and she’d sell potions to the townspeople and they would live happily and simply, far from monsters and kings of any kind. That sort of life had always sounded boring to her, but she knew if he asked, she would say yes.

“Yen, please,” he whispered again, the base of his cock dragging against her clit with each stroke. 

She tanged her fingers in his hair and kissed him, nodding.

* * *

She waited until he was asleep to sneak out. After all, he had a monster to kill and she had a trunk to pack.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fuckin' in the woods. As you do.

Her foot snapped the twig a heartbeat before the dagger whistled past her ear to bury itself in the tree behind her. “A little jumpy, are we, witcher?” she said, stepping into the light cast by his fire.

“Fuck, Yen, ” Geralt muttered. “You could get killed, you know. Sneaking around like that.”

“I’d be a poor mage if I let something as flimsy as a dagger kill me.”

He yanked the knife out of the tree as she sat down on a rock. “Did you want something, mage?”

_ Oh, it’s this Geralt. The grumpy one, not the sweet one or the playful one. _ “Tell me, why is it that I’m always the one seeking you out, even when you go out of your way to make sure I know you’re in my territory?”

“This is your territory? Didn’t realize you’d been crowned queen. Forgive me if I don’t curtsy.” He sat down opposite her, his golden eyes reflecting the firelight. 

“What’s gotten up your ass? Last I saw you, you made me leave a place I was very happy.”

“You weren’t happy there. And I didn’t make you leave. I asked you to, and you did.”

“I was content.”

“You were bored out of your skull.”

“Still doesn’t explain why you sent your bard to perform just outside my rooms today rather than coming yourself.”

“A man like me gets noticed. Didn’t know if you’d want to be seen with me.”

“So careful with my honor,” she clucked, standing. “If you’re any more careful, I’ll think you don’t want to fuck me.”

Geralt snorted. “Couldn’t have that now, could we.” He was on his feet and had her backed into the tree in three strides. His knee slid between her thighs, pressing hard against her core. His head dipped down as if to kiss her, but rather than her mouth he pressed his lips to the edge of her collarbone, right where it met her shoulder. He nipped at her skin and then soothed it with his tongue, letting her rock her hips along his thigh. 

But the angle was wrong and her skirts were in the way, depriving her of the friction she needed. “Geralt,” she whined, and he dragged his mouth up the side of her throat to capture her lips, lifting her in the air as he did so. They both struggled with her skirts until they were shoved up over her hips, and Geralt kept her pinned against the tree with his weight while he undid the plackets to his breeches.

Yennefer sank down on his cock with a breathy sigh because nothing on the Continent— nothing— had ever felt as good as Geralt moving inside her. The bark scraped at her back with each thrust, his lips hot on her jaw. It was perfect.

But then he stopped moving. She keened needily, but Geralt simply spun them around and laid her down on his bedroll. He pressed inside of her more slowly this time, face buried in her neck. She wished they’d taken their time, peeled off each other’s clothing and tasted each new inch of flesh revealed. She missed the feel of his sweat-slicked skin against hers, and when she went to card his hair back from his face her laced their fingers together and pinned her hands next to her ears, still rocking in and out of her at a perfect, maddening pace.

Above them, the moon shone and the stars flickered and for the first time in decades, Yennefer felt whole.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Yennefer gets sick.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had a question from someone if these ficlets are in any sort of specific order, and the answer is: not really, no! Obviously some of them are (like the feast ones) but honestly, I'm not writing them with any sort of timeline or character arc in mind so in conclusion: ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯

_ Mages don’t get sick. _ That’s what they said at Aretuza, anyway, which was, unsurprisingly, a bunch of bullshit. Mages didn’t get sick because you could take a potion to ward off most minor illnesses, and the longer you lived the more immune you became to everything else. So mages didn’t get sick  _ often, _ but you could still  _ get _ sick.

“Fucking Aretuza,” Yennefer mumbled. She dug a fourth blanket from the trunk at the foot of her bed and burrowed under it, still shivering. The fire in her hearth had gone cold several hours ago, but she was out of firewood and too ill to risk using her chaos to conjure more. Blankets would have to do.

Hours— or days, or perhaps years— later, she woke. She couldn’t get warm and her muscles felt as though she’d been trampled by a horse. Her fever must be dangerously high, but there wasn’t anyone else to help. Yennefer hated having servants, their lives a stark reminder of what hers had been like before Tissaia arrived. She groaned and curled more tightly into a ball, letting sleep take her.

Hallucinations set in. Istredd came, watching her silently in the corner. Her stepfather arrived, hurling abuse at her while her mother watched mutely from the door. Kings she’d served, lords she’d bedded, ladies she’d guided through the maze of court, all of them showed up to be exactly as helpful as they’d been to her then.

So many visitors, and never the one she wanted.

“There you go,” a deep, rumbly voice whispered. There was a cool cloth on her forehead and the crackle of fire in the grate, and she sent a silent thanks to whatever god had sent this hallucination. At least this one was useful. “You’re going to be okay,” the apparition of Geralt promised. “Just a fever. It’d take more than that to bring down a sorceress like you.”

She whimpered, pathetic, and turned her face towards the sound of his voice. The wet cloth felt so good, the rumble of his chest so soothing, that she wanted to curl into his lap and sleep there forever. Yennefer shivered and her hallucination of Geralt slid his hand down her back, gentle and comforting. She let herself drift off, relieved her mind had chosen to play this trick on her.

The next time she awoke she was soaking in a tub of cool water, caged against a warm, sturdy chest. His heartbeat was slower than anyone else, low and steady, and she relaxed against him while he ran a soapy rag down her limbs. “There you go,” Geralt whispered in her ear. "There you go.” He massaged her muscles as he went, easing the bone deep ache.

She was carried back to her bed, and the sheets were crisp and sweet smelling instead of sour and damp. Strong arms helped her sit up and lifted a bowl of broth to her lips, murmuring encouraging nonsense as she slurped it down. Yennefer sighed and sank back into the depths of slumber, content.

When she woke she felt hollow and shaky, but the shimmery halo everything had during the fever was gone. A fire roared in her hearth and Geralt laid next to her, sleeping peacefully. She touched his face, hesitant, and his eyes fluttered open. “You’re real,” she said, her voice more like a croak than she anticipated.

He smiled softly. “Of course I’m real. Are you feeling better?”

“How did you get in?” She always warded her door with several spells to keep out any unexpected visitors or angry, superstitious townspeople.

“Magic,” he said, eyes dancing. He leaned over and kissed her forehead. “Go back to sleep, Yen. You’re safe.”

He was gone when she next opened her eyes, but she wasn’t alone. An old woman sat near the fire, knitting. “Who the hell are you?”

If the crone was surprised by her bark, she didn't show it. “Your man had to go so he hired me. There’s stew, if you’re feeling better.”

“He’s not my man,” Yennefer said automatically.

The old woman snorted. “Man hunts down an old lady and pays her good coin to nurse a woman, I’d say he’s yours. And if he isn’t, I'll take him off your hands,” she cackled. “Good set of thighs on that one. Always did like me a set of thighs.”

Yennefer couldn’t help but smile. “Thank you,” she said, sinking back into the mattress, grateful and wistful at once. At least her sheets still smelled of him.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I had a request for jealous!Geralt and jealous!Yennefer. What follows is 100% consensual, but also 100% Not The Best Way Of Handling Things.

Yennefer rarely bothered with taking lovers. At least, she rarely bothered with lovers who weren’t Geralt. Ever since he landed in her life with the force of a cannonball other men seemed like pale, faded imitations of the real thing.

But a sorceress had needs, and sometimes the witcher was nowhere to be found. The merchant’s son was handsome enough, and though he was old enough to marry he hadn’t found a poor sap dumb enough to yoke herself to him. It had been boredom, more than anything, that had her responding to his poor attempts at flirting, and his home was well-appointed and not far away.

But she’d already forgotten his name by the time she slipped out the door. She needed a bath when she got home to wash any remaining traces of him off her, she decided, keeping her eyes down to avoid any horse dung on the road. Up ahead, a door beneath a red lantern swung open.

She hardly paid it any mind; men leaving a brothel at this time of night were as common as rats in a grain bin. But then she caught a glimpse of unmistakable white hair and froze.

“Geralt?” her voice cracked through the night air like a whip.

He paused momentarily and then took his time kissing the other woman goodbye and handing her a bag of coin, turning on his heel nonchalantly. “Yen,” he said pleasantly, as if they’d met on an evening stroll.

“How long have you been in town?” she snapped and he fell into step beside her. She thought of the night of mediocre sex she’d just had and grew furious. He’d been nearby, and he’d gone to a whorehouse instead of finding her.

“Just arrived.”

“And had an itch to scratch.”

He cut his eyes at her. “Something bothering you?”

“Of course not. Why would it?”

He stopped and grabbed her elbow. “Don’t,” he growled. “Don’t pretend like you’re on some high ground here.”

“You were the one who walked into my town and went straight to a brothel,” she sneered.

“And how was I supposed to know it  _ was _ your town? I haven’t heard from you in months, and last I did, you certainly weren’t here.”

That much she had forgotten, admittedly, but she wasn’t about to let him gain the upper hand. “Aren’t witchers supposed to be good trackers? It’s not my fault you’re bad at the only job you have.”

His grip tightened. “And him?”

“Who?” she said innocently.

Geralt gritted his teeth together so hard she feared they might break. “The man I can smell on you,” he snarled. “Who is he?”

“He’s no more important to me than she was to you,” Yennefer replied, yanking her arm away. “And no more important than I am, it seems.”

Geralt grabbed her again and kissed her, hard. “Don’t,” he warned again, and then she was the one who kissed him back. Compared to her night of tepid kisses and far too much tongue, kissing Geralt was like breathing again after being submerged in a murky lake.

She pushed him into the small passageway between buildings, not caring that people were still milling about. She needed to erase every trace of that merchant’s son and replace him with Geralt, his musk and his hard, unyielding touch.

Geralt broke the kiss and caught her chin in his hand, holding her still. “You know what you are to me,” he said fiercely. “Don’t pretend you don’t.”

“Prove it,” she spat.

His next kiss stole the breath from her lungs. He had her up against the wall in a heartbeat, tugging roughly on her bodice to bare her breasts. Her nipples pebbled in the night air before his mouth was on them, hot and wet. His teeth grazed her skin and it sent a bolt of want straight to her core.

Nothing about them was gentle. Her heels dug into his back and he shoved himself inside her with almost brutal force. Yennefer clawed at him, shredding the back of his shirt and sinking her teeth into his shoulder, meeting him thrust for punishing thrust. 

Her back scraped against the wood of the building and she hissed  _ faster  _ in his ear, needing everything he was giving her and more. Geralt gave her what she wanted, pinning her against the wall and fucking her hard enough for her to forget everything, obliterating any traces of the people they’d been with before. There was only Geralt, his breath in her ear and his cock in her cunt, driving her closer and closer to the edge.

It happened so fast she wasn’t sure who came first, him or her. All she knew is pleasure ripped through her with surprising force just as he groaned against her neck and then it was over.

And she knew that while nothing had changed, somehow, everything had.


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Just a little bit of softness for your thursday evening.

Moments like this were rare. Geralt knew as much, and he stayed still so as not to spook her. Yen shifted and sighed, her breath stirring the hair on his chest. Her leg eased over his thigh and her hand skimmed up and down his torso, stopping to trace the grooves above his hips. It felt so good, so right. So...ticklish. He let a small noise escape his throat and flinched.

Yen’s lips curved as she pressed a kiss just over his heart. “Ticklish?” she asked.

“No,” he grunted. She lifted her head to grin and he couldn’t help but grin back. “What’s gotten into you?” he asked.

“Nothing,” she said, worrying her lower lip between her teeth. 

He ran his thumb along it, loosening it and soothing the indentation from her teeth. “Never thought I’d see the great sorceress be playful,” he teased.

“It’s been decades,” she admitted. “Maybe longer. My childhood wasn’t one of games.”

His had been, at first, but that was put to a stop the moment he was given to Vesemir. He carded her hair back from her face and wished he could erase the flash of sadness he saw in her purple eyes. “Were you ever happy back then?”

“Not really, no,” she said. “You?” Her fingers were tripping up his chest and she brushed a kiss to his jaw, her soft lips rasping against the stubble.

“I was. And then I wasn’t, in a way that undid all that came before it.”

She raised herself up on her elbow. “I’d hurt them, if I could. Whoever hurt you,” she said, and there was an icy undercurrent to her voice that left no doubt as to her sincerity.

Geralt’s throat went tight. It had been so long since someone wanted to protect him he’d forgotten how it felt. There was so much he wanted to say, but none of it seemed right. So he kissed her instead, because that was something he could do. He kissed her and ran his hands down her sides as she rolled on top of him, trying to tell her with his kiss the words written on his heart. His cock found her entrance easily, and Yennefer moaned into his mouth as he slipped inside. Geralt kept his hands on her hips, guiding her up and down his length, their chests pressed tightly together. He couldn’t get as deep like this but he didn’t care, because Yennefer was everywhere, surrounding him and consuming him with each drugging kiss. 

They couldn’t fix each other’s pasts and she wouldn't let him be her future, but for the present, this was enough.

  
  



	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A rare ficlet that does have a place in the chronological order of TV canon. Post dragon hunt, pre fall of Cintra.
> 
> V v angsty and kinda smutty.

“What do you want, Geralt?” she snapped. Yennefer was clinging to her anger, because anger was easier than the other emotions threatening to drown her. Anger was pure, anger was clean, anger was  _ simple. _

“For you to believe me,” he said, and his eyes were utterly serious, but that was the entire problem. Geralt didn’t believe what they had was based on a lie, but Yennefer knew the truth. The way her heart ached when he looked at her like that, the way she craved him when he was gone— none of it was real.

It was just the magic of a djinn granting Geralt a wish.

“You know I can’t give you that,” she said, with just the slightest softening of her tone. “What you did— I can’t forget that.”

“It’s real, Yen. What we have— you know it’s real.”

“That’s the thing. I  _ don’t, _ and I never will.” Her voice broke halfway through, because more than anything, she wanted him to be right. She wanted what she felt for him— that bone deep certainty that she loved him and he loved her— to be real. It was what she’d been looking for for decades, what she’d never truly had.

And Geralt had taken that from her. She wanted freedom and power and family and belonging, and instead all she got was a magical bond with a Witcher that felt like love but would never be the real thing.

It broke her heart in more ways than she thought possible. She turned her back on him, unable to bear the sadness in his eyes. He stepped closer and she felt the heat radiating from him, warmer than the blazing fire in her hearth. “Tell me. Tell me what to do to fix this,” he said, as close to begging as she’d ever heard him. He wrapped his hand around her shoulder, thumb teasing the edge of her sleeveless white gown.

Yennefer looked back at him, her eyes wet with unshed tears. “You can’t.”

“Yen, please.”

She turned and laid her hand along his jaw. Stubble rasped against her palm and he closed his eyes, nuzzling into her touch. She looked at his scarred, weathered face, and something inside her broke. Yennefer pressed her lips to his, lightly, searchingly, and for a moment Geralt hesitated. His eyes opened and she shook her head. “Just once. One— one more time,” she whispered, and even as his eyes darkened with sadness he kissed her back.

He dragged his mouth down her throat, nudging aside the strap of her down and following it with his lips. His kisses branded her and she let the pull in her belly take over, ignoring the voice in her head that insisted on whispering  _ not real _ . She wanted it to be real— needed it to be real— if only for a night.

Yennefer caught his face in her hands, tugging him up from where his tongue was tracing the swell of her breast. “You can’t stay the night,” she said, desperate for him to understand.

“Yen—”

“You can’t,” she interrupted, sealing her mouth over his. “Promise me.”

Geralt pulled back and met her gaze somberly. “I promise,” he rasped, and she knew it was breaking him the same way it was breaking her.

She slipped the gown off her other shoulder and let it fall to the floor and Geralt swept her in his arms, laying her down gently on the mattress with her knees draping over the edge. And then he was between her thighs, licking a long, slow stripe up her clit. She keened, fingers twisting in his hair, and let herself float away. There was nothing left in the universe except for them, the way he made her feel when she came and the way he fit perfectly inside of her. She could taste the sweat of his skin and the warmth of his lips, and his breath fanning against her neck as he thrust inside of her had her clawing at his back, desperate to be even closer to him.

There was a sweetness to this time their other couplings had never managed, a tenderness that threatened to tear her apart. It was so perfect it hurt, the ache burrowing into her bones until she knew it would never, ever leave her.

Even when they were done she clung to him, unable to let go. The sweat cooled on their skin and still she held him tight, his cock softening inside her as she buried her face in his neck. “Yen, you said—” Geralt couldn’t finish the sentence, but she knew what he meant.  _ You said I had to go. _ And he did, because she wasn’t strong enough to say goodbye to him in the morning.

But she also wasn’t strong enough to say goodbye now. “Stay,” she said, lips moving against his collarbone. “Just until I’m asleep.”

Geralt didn’t answer, but he rolled to his back and pulled her across his chest, hand carding through her hair. She closed her eyes and let herself believe it was real.

And in the morning, he was gone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know, I know. But I felt like writing something sad.

**Author's Note:**

> Yes, I'm sure I got some details wrong. Don't @ me, I'm a little drunk.


End file.
